


I'll only hurt you if you let me

by swallowthewhale



Series: Killervibe Week [26]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:29:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26033470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swallowthewhale/pseuds/swallowthewhale
Summary: Its Cisco’s brother’s wedding and seeing all these happy couples is killing him and all he can think about is how this was almost him and Caitlin.Killervibe Week 2020: Breakup
Relationships: Cisco Ramon/Caitlin Snow
Series: Killervibe Week [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/752097
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9
Collections: Killervibedaily Events





	I'll only hurt you if you let me

Cisco stares glumly at his glass of wine, desperately trying to ignore the laughter and upbeat music around him. Dante’s wedding is just as excruciating as he always thought it would be, even if his fiancee Josefina is super sweet. There’d been Dante’s performance, of course, after which Cisco’s were the only dry eyes in the room, and the first dance to a sappy song, and then a lot of dancing while Cisco sat on the edge of the room wallowing in his own depression.

Cisco was a little surprised - but grateful - that no one had pressured Dante into including Cisco in the wedding party. The whole experience was bad enough with the minimal involvement he’d been required to have already. And he can’t tell if its better or worse that his mom had clearly spread the word of his breakup and everyone had gingerly tread around the subject when they talked to him.

“Cisco!” His abuela calls, poking his shoulder with a bony finger as she sits next to him. “How’s your Caitlin.”

Everyone except his abuela, apparently.

Cisco sighs. “Abuelita, you know we broke up,” he reminds her.

“ _Sí, sí,_ ” she says dismissively. “But how is she? You’re still friends, yes?”

Cisco shifts uncomfortably. They’d _said_ they would stay friends. But who really does that? And it’s not like Caitlin’s made any effort to keep in touch. “Not really,” he admits finally. “It’s too awkward.”

Abuela jabs him again, this time in the ribs. “Awkward!” She exclaims. “What does awkward matter when you’ve been friends for so long!”

Worried that she’ll bring up the time they’d held a fake wedding in his backyard with Dante as officiant and his abuelos as witnesses, Cisco changes the subject. “Have you had cake yet, Abuelita? I can get you some.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Okay, you can get me cake. But I want to know about Caitlin when you get back,” she calls after him.

Cisco detours around the room to get more alcohol - something stronger than wine this time - before getting cake for both himself and his abuela. Any hope that she might have forgotten or found someone else to talk to is dashed when he returns to find her watching him intently.

“What happened?” She asks, taking a bite of cake.

Cisco groans. “Abuelita,” he protests.

“ _Dime_ ,” she says firmly, pushing his cake towards him.

Cisco takes a big swig of the drink the bartender had made for him, admits defeat, and tells his abuela what had happened.

It was all pretty simple, when you boiled it down to the basics. Caitlin’s residency for medical school is two hours away and neither of them wanted to do long-distance, with Cisco gearing up for his Ph.D. qualifying exam this year followed by the hardest part of the program, and writing, and his defense. It seemed simpler to break up but stay friends and wait to see if life brought them back together again. Cisco hadn’t accounted for the horrible hole in his life when Caitlin left, or the hard truth that they would never be friends in the same way they were before.

Abuela smacks the back of his head gently. “ _Idiota_!”

“Hey!” Cisco rubs the spot.

“Two hours is nothing,” she scolds. “Your Abuelo was stationed in Virginia during the Korean War and we couldn’t afford plane tickets to visit.” Her voice softens. “What is two hours compared to your love?”

Cisco stares blankly at the empty glass in front of him for a long moment while his abuela looks on. Mind made up, he shovels the last bite of cake into his mouth and stands, pulling his jacket back on. “I have to go,” he says absently.

Abuela puts her chin in her hand, watching with a knowing smile. “Go, _mijo_ , I’ll deal with your mami.”

He kisses her cheek then rushes out of the room and to his car. The two hour drive to Caitlin’s new address goes by in a blur. He gets to her front door and rings the bell before he realizes he hadn’t even figured out what he was going to say.

Sudden regret makes him hope she won’t be awake, but before long, Caitlin opens the front door, dressed casually in jeans and a sweater with her hair up in a messy ponytail.

“Cisco?” She asks, frowning. “What’s wrong?”

“Caitlin,” he breathes, everything sort of hitting him at once. How late it is, the stupid suit, all the rational reasons they’d broken up in the first place. What is he even doing? “I’m sorry, I know that it’s one in the morning and I’m dressed really formally and a little bit - okay, a lot bit - drunk, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you after my abuela asked how you were doing also can I come in it’s freezing out here?” he managed to get out in a somewhat coherent fashion.

Caitlin blinks at him, then silently steps aside to let him in.

He follows her up the stairs of the building to the cute little one bedroom he’d visited with her while she was apartment searching and seeing it full of the things that had been missing from his own apartment for the past two months leaves him a little tight-chested.

Caitlin leans against the counter in the kitchen, farther than she’s ever stood from him before. “Dante’s wedding was today,” she says.

“Yeah.” Cisco had filled out the RSVP for a plus one, back when Caitlin had been hoping to be placed at the Central City Hospital for her residency. They had never made it as far as coordinating their outfits.

“How was it?” Caitlin asks.

Cisco barely hears her. “Why did we really break up?” He blurts out.

Caitlin’s brow furrows and she tucks her arms into her side defensively. “Cisco,” she sighs, a little sad, a little tired. “We agreed-”

“I know,” Cisco interrupts. “But, like, is it really the two hours? Is it really that we’ll be busy? We’ve been busy the entire time we’ve been dating. We’ll probably always be busy. And it’s just two hours. That’s nothing.”

“Cisco,” Caitlin says again.

He ignores the warning note in her voice. “I love you,” Cisco says desperately. “What’s two hours compared to that?”

Caitlin had never said outright that she didn’t love him anymore, but Cisco had definitely heard it in all the rebuttals to his ideas of how they could make it work. So maybe he needs to hear it out loud, just to know that it’s really over. “I know,” she says instead. “But-” she stops.

“But what?” Cisco asks, voice cracking.

“Please don’t ask me again,” she whispers. There are tears in her eyes, Cisco can see them, but she’s shut the door on them. Again. And Cisco can take a hint, even when he’s drunk and lonely.

“Okay,” Cisco says. “Okay. Bye, Caitlin.” He lets himself out. Caitlin doesn’t say goodbye and Cisco doesn’t look back.

* * *

Over the next five years, Cisco passes his Ph.D. qualifying exam, successfully writes and defends his dissertation, and is quite unsuccessful at forgetting Caitlin. Through the years, he does manage to mope over her less, but even so many years later, she’s still at the forefront of his mind when he considers postdocs and career plans and life plans. They’d had so many plans together, before, first as best friends and then as partners. And while they’d never discussed things like marriage or kids or buying a house together, Cisco had always thought they were heading in that direction, and so to be staring down a future without her feels lacking.

But without her is just life now, so Cisco accepts a postdoc at Star Labs with Dr. Wells, trades in his little apartment for a nicer, bigger one using his bigger salary, and signs up for a dating app he never uses. He goes to visit his abuela and happily brings home all the food she cooks for him. He has dinner with his parents and lunch with Dante and Jo and strongly considers getting a puppy from the shelter he walks by every day on his way to work. It’s not the life he’d pictured for himself when he started graduate school, but it’s good. He’s happy.

Until Caitlin Snow walks back into his life.

“Ramon,” Wells calls in that tone with books no room for dallying.

Cisco hastily scribbles down some thoughts to help him pick up where he was on the prototype he was testing and spins around to come face to face with Wells and one Caitlin Snow.

“This is Dr. Snow,” Wells says, already sounding like he’s done with the conversation. “She’s our new biochem hire. Show her around?”

It’s not really a question that requires a response, since Wells is already leaving. Cisco stares at Caitlin wide-eyed and speechless for a long moment while she stares back, cheeks pink.

“Um,” Cisco says eloquently. “Hi.”

“Hi, Cisco,” Caitlin whispers.

He clears his throat, looking away as he claps his hands. “Okay, tour!” Cisco stands and takes off, not looking back to see if she’s following.

Caitlin lets him show her around and he can see her mentally noting the location of various equipment, the rules for the staff break room, and her not-so-subtle attempts to study him. When they loop back around to the offices, Cisco spots the one with her name and brings her right up to the door.

“And this is you! My office is right down the hall, but I’m usually in my workroom if you have any questions.” Cisco offers her a bright grin, then swings around to leave.

“Cisco,” Caitlin says quietly. “Wait, I-”

Cisco holds up his hands. “No worries, we’re good. I’ll see you around okay?” Then he attempts to walk at a casual pace instead of sprinting down the hall and ignores Caitlin calling after him.

Cisco thinks things progress just find after that. He places Caitlin firmly in the “colleague” category and tries to stop thinking of her as either a friend or an ex. They collaborate well together, and Cisco appreciates when she takes his side against Hartley, but the easy banter and camaraderie they used to have is gone. Cisco is determined to keep it totally professional. He really, really, is.

When the annual Star Labs holiday party rolls around seven months later, Cisco heavily debates not going. He hates dressing up and definitely doesn’t want to meet whichever hot beefcake Caitlin is dating at the party. In the end, though, the temptation of free food and Barry’s cajoling convinces him to go. He dresses as casually as he can get away with in a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up, ties back his hair, and hangs around Barry and Iris most of the evening, enduring their never-ending honeymoon phase by keeping his plate full and drinking a few too many of the fruity martinis from the bar. And only when he is a bit buzzed and abandoned by Barry and Iris does he spot Caitlin.

She’s beautiful - she’s _always_ beautiful - in a shimmery dark blue dress with long sleeves but a short skirt. Her hair is down in loose curls over her shoulder and she’s laughing at something Melissa from accounting is saying and Cisco can’t take his eyes off her.

He watches surreptitiously for a while, but the sight of a tall, broad-shouldered man putting his hand on Caitlin’s back is like a bucket of ice water over his head. The buzz from the alcohol is gone and his brain is screaming at him to get out. Cisco makes his way out of the big ballroom in a haze, brushing past Barry’s concerned questions and escaping out into the gardens behind the building. He unbuttons a few more buttons on his shirt, leaning against the wall with his hands on his knees as he tries to catch his breath. It had caught him off guard and all at once, that he’s still in love with Caitlin, so many years later.

“Cisco?”

He groans, pushing himself upright. When he tries to sweep a hand through his hair, he yanks out the elastic in frustration, sending it flying past Caitlin as she walks through the door.

“Cisco, are you okay?” Caitlin asks, voice colored with concern. She reaches out a hand as if to put it on his shoulder, but ends up hovering halfway between them.

“Yeah,” Cisco says gruffly, using both hands to put his hair in order. “I’m fine.”

Caitlin raises a disbelieving eyebrow. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

He sighs. “It’s fine, I’m fine. You should go back in to your boyfriend. I’m sure he’s wondering where you went.”

Both of Caitlin’s eyebrows shoot up at that. “Boyfriend?” She laughs. “What boyfriend?”

Cisco gestures to indicate someone taller than him. “You know, tall, dark and handsome who brought you a drink.”

She blinks. “You mean Oliver?” She asks in disbelief. “He’s _not_ my boyfriend.”

Cisco laughs hollowly. “Sure.”

Caitlin’s face darkens and she crosses her arms. “He’s here with Felicity from IT. They’re engaged,” Caitlin says flatly. “And even if I did have a boyfriend, what does it matter to you?”

Cisco stares at her, open mouthed. “What does it matter?” He splutters. “Why do you think it matters?!”

Her glare narrows. “You’ve shown no interest in being my friend or being anything other than cordial work colleagues since I got here. Why would I think you cared at all?”

“Because I’m still in love with you,” Cisco explodes, dragging his hands through his hair and pacing in a tight circle. “Because if we were friends again, or friendly, I don’t think I could be happy with that. And you made it perfectly clear what you wanted six years ago.”

It’s Caitlin’s turn to look shocked. “You’re still in love with me?” She says, hushed. “Even after all this time?”

Cisco drags the toe of his shoe through the dirt. “Yeah, of course, Caitlin. I was never not in love with you. But you didn’t want to be together, and I’m trying to respect that.”

“That’s not what I wanted,” Caitlin blurts out, and when Cisco looks up at her, she’s white in the dim light, deep lines of remorse carved into her face.

“No?” He asks, trying to keep the sudden hope from swelling up.

“No,” she says, taking a step towards him. “I loved you then. I love you now. I just didn’t know how to deal with all of it,” Caitlin admits. "School, and the distance, and just, how _much_ I felt. I was sure it wouldn’t last. That you’d meet someone else who was smarter and prettier and cooler, and I…”

“Caitlin,” Cisco interrupts, unable to contain the hope now, and putting his hands on her arms where they’re tucked around her. “You are the smartest, prettiest, coolest person I know. And there is literally no one else I’d rather be with. I’m in love with _you_.”

Caitlin takes a shaky breath, smiling at him shyly. “Okay,” she says.

Cisco cups his hands around her cheeks, drawing her closer. “Okay, what?” He asks teasingly.

“Okay, I love you, too,” Caitlin says softly, her eyes fluttering shut as Cisco’s mouth brushes over hers. “And there’s no one else I’d rather be with either.”

“Okay,” Cisco agrees, and kisses her.

**Author's Note:**

> [ for those who like visual aids ](https://swallowthewhale.tumblr.com/post/186526790643/fyeahdpanabaker-feelin-killer-frosty)


End file.
